cheese, the good kind

and you thought i might be kidding about the mice... fraid not:



that little mouse came from under the stove. we trapped him in a victor live trap baited with cheese. and we caught and released another one last night... if they aren't, in fact, the same animal, we're clearing out the mouse population. fingers crossed this little guy wasn't industrious enough to find his way back inside in less than 24 hours and back into the trap. we do not have an endless supply of cheese here people!

so i'm feeling good today. we had bank things to do yesterday after work and while i wasn't stressing about it, it feels nice to have it done early (on time according to them, early according to what my brain tells me). and i learned about all bank drafts and what "in trust" means. why didn't i learn about any of this? i really think they should teach financial stuff in schools. even just the basics about not spending more money than you have. i'm sure that would help a lot of people. thankfully i already know that one, but it was definitely painful, as a 25-year-old, being told about "in trust" by someone who's thinking to himself "man, this girl is dumb!" let's clear something up here: i'm not dumb, i just didn't have a rich great-grandmother who left me a trust fund, paving the way for me to learn about these things early on in life. and to continue being fair, neither did he, i just missed something.

after that we napped on the couch. i was SO good this week and didn't nap even though i was painfully tired monday, tuesday and wednesday. i powered through it and was only slightly bitchy at at least one point each of those days. the first day that i've had enough sleep and don't think i'm tired, i nap. makes perfect sense. but it meant that dinner wasn't ready until 9pm and so we were up late. no problem because it's friday! and it's the friday before a long weekend. and not just any long weekend, c-day long weekend. sad that it's more exciting to me that it's a long weekend that that it's c-day. that christmas spirit i was oozing apparently dried out, crusted over and fell off. and if that doesn't gross you out, i don't know what would! here's to the long weekend and c-day!

i also managed to see that i was thinking about costa rica all wrong. i'm worried about the food over there, me not being so much a fan of diarrhea, and was thinking that our two lodging options were resorts (expensive!) or hostels (cheap but scary*!) and then i remembered that there are also hotels and that hotels do not normally have minimum stays that most resorts have. and that if we wanted to stay at a resort, we would just go down south, like everyone and his dog has done, for cheap. we want to go to costa rica for a bunch of reasons:

- not everyone has been to costa rica
- the wildlife and windsurfing are plentiful and amazing, and
- we don't travel much so we're going big

we picked up two travel books yesterday from a travel agency and read all about the tours these companies offered and the resorts. it all sounds wonderful but it all sounds super expensive. we just bought a house, we can't necessarily afford $6000 for two weeks of structured time down there. and so, as we were falling asleep (j was falling asleep and i was reading) i realized that we need to book our flights and book our first night in a hotel close to the airport and just go. we have a lonely planet guide book, we'll have access to the internet, and we have an idea of the places we want to see and the things we want to do. the rest, we'll sort out when we're down there. and that is the plan. off to check flight prices.

* hostels are scary because we've never stayed in one before and every time we've travelled, we've stayed with family. we are very not worldly when it comes to travelling so be nice.

ps. this means that, for my birthday, i would really appreciate gift certificates to mec so i can buy a pack. in my mind, a pack suits this kind of travelling much better than suitcases.